Home Sweet Home

Wow. I can’t believe we have been home almost three weeks and I am just now getting around to posting about our return journey. In my defense we have been really busy, with two trips out of town (and another one coming up tomorrow), and a visit from Matty’s family. Also, while readjusting to East Coast time, Ruby decided to start climbing out of her crib, so we have moved her to her sweet toddler bed. Thus, our two year old has been getting up in the middle of the night and wandering into our room, and then I sit with her until she falls back asleep. Oh, and I was sick with a stomach bug all last week. And I am now 34 weeks pregnant. So yeah, we’ve been pretty busy here.

Ok so for the trip home. It actually went really well–much better than I had hoped. It was so hard to say goodbye to Matt and Rachel after such a wonderful visit, but thankfully we get to see them again in December, with their new baby!

We flew out of Brisbane at 10:30 on Tuesday morning, so Ruby was well rested. I had reserved our seats, leaving middle seats open between us in the hope that they would remain unoccupied. My plan worked and the five of us (my mom and dad, my sister Elise, Ruby, and I) had seven seats, which made the 13 hour flight much more comfortable and enjoyable.

Upon settling in, Ruby promptly spilled water all over herself and then insisted on being naken for a few hours. Of course I had extra clothes on hand but wanted to pick my battles very carefully in such a confined and crowded space.

Ruby only slept for about 90 minutes total (not continuously), but everyone helped keep her entertained. She fussed a bit here and there, but really was very very good.

We finally arrived in LA feeling quite exhausted and all went through customs together. This is a terrible picture of Elise (sorry!) but it pretty perfectly captures how we were all feeling at LAX:

After customs we all had breakfast together, then my parents headed over to Southwest to catch their flights home. Elise helped Ruby and I walk over to Alaska Airlines and get checked in for our (direct!) flight back to DC before leaving to catch her train back to San Diego. We had a long layover (so hours total) and Ruby passed out for about two hours on a chair on the terminal–she was seriously dead asleep!

Our final flight was the fastest I have ever flown across country–I think we were only airborne for a little over four hours. A lovely woman sat in our row and was super sweet and helpful with Ruby. We finally landed at Reagan at about 8:30 at night and were both SO THRILLED to finally see Matty. We had both missed him so much, and there is nothing like 28 hours of international travel to make you really appreciate being home with your family.